Annie's Virtual Pre-Grouping, Grouping and BR Layouts & Workbench

[Annie]

I spent far too much time asleep today, but later this afternoon I had a look at seeing how easy might be to roll back time on the 1970s Minories layout.  With the Trainz Model Railway format it can be a bit tricky sometimes due to the various parts of the whole assembly being in different layers and it not always being clear as to which bits are in which layer.  In this case though it was reasonably straightforward to find which layers the post-war buildings were in and to remove them.

Still quite a bit more to do though with all manner of BR Blue era odds and ends to clear away before I can start thinking about  making it all look decently pre-grouping.  At this stage I'm not even sure which railway company this version of Minories might belong to.  Part of me wants to do the GER and part of me wants to do the MET; - and the avatars of other railway companies keep whispering in my ear as well.  BUT what it all comes down to is what is actually available in Trainz that can make for a decent representation of the pre-WW1 era without having to accept too many compromises or making me want to throw up in a paper bag.

 

[eheaps]

57 minutes ago, Annie said:

...  Part of me wants to do the GER and part of me wants to do the MET...

 

 

Why not both! If you're going for a fictional station it can be "somewhere in East London" and be served by various of the Suburban companies including MET and GER. You could probably justify some District, Midland and SECR in there too.

 

Alternatively the Met lent the GER a bunch of A classes at a time when the Met had a loco surplus (they had expected to be operating the District and bought the locos, only for the District to decide otherwise).

[Compound2632]

6 minutes ago, eheaps said:

Why not both! If you're going for a fictional station it can be "somewhere in East London" and be served by various of the Suburban companies including MET and GER. You could probably justify some District, Midland and SECR in there too.

 

Indeed. It's called Basilica Fields.

[Schooner]

@eheaps what did the NLR do to you to be left out of the fun?!

 

@Compound2632 is the project still a going concern? It remains a regular read for handy info and general good vibes.

[eheaps]

12 minutes ago, Schooner said:

@eheaps what did the NLR do to you to be left out of the fun?!

 

There aren't (as far as I know) any NLR models available for Trainz. One day, if time allows, I might do something about that.

[Schooner]

Ah. An excellent reason!

[Annie]

36 minutes ago, eheaps said:

 

Why not both! If you're going for a fictional station it can be "somewhere in East London" and be served by various of the Suburban companies including MET and GER. You could probably justify some District, Midland and SECR in there too.

 

Alternatively the Met lent the GER a bunch of A classes at a time when the Met had a loco surplus (they had expected to be operating the District and bought the locos, only for the District to decide otherwise).

Thanks for the suggestions Ed, I've not been all that well these past few days so I was starting to get a bit down in the dumps.  I have a vague memory of a very good map I saw recently outlining the GER's connections with other London railways including the MET, but do you think I can find it.  Both the GER and the MET working into Minories would be ideal since there's good carriage models for both lines and your GER C32 tank engines would be right at home alongside your lovely MET engines.  

 

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

Indeed. It's called Basilica Fields.

Yes exactly that Stephen.

5 minutes ago, eheaps said:

There aren't (as far as I know) any NLR models available for Trainz. One day, if time allows, I might do something about that.

Now that would be something that I would love to see.

[Edwardian]

5 hours ago, Annie said:

I spent far too much time asleep today, but later this afternoon I had a look at seeing how easy might be to roll back time on the 1970s Minories layout.  With the Trainz Model Railway format it can be a bit tricky sometimes due to the various parts of the whole assembly being in different layers and it not always being clear as to which bits are in which layer.  In this case though it was reasonably straightforward to find which layers the post-war buildings were in and to remove them.

Still quite a bit more to do though with all manner of BR Blue era odds and ends to clear away before I can start thinking about  making it all look decently pre-grouping.  At this stage I'm not even sure which railway company this version of Minories might belong to.  Part of me wants to do the GER and part of me wants to do the MET; - and the avatars of other railway companies keep whispering in my ear as well.  BUT what it all comes down to is what is actually available in Trainz that can make for a decent representation of the pre-WW1 era without having to accept too many compromises or making me want to throw up in a paper bag.

 

 

I feel guilty now!

 

This sort of layout, and the reason I've always hankered after one, is the ability to combine railway companies. Of course, move it around the capital and those combinations can change. 

 

For East London, GER, LT&SR and LB&SCR; the reasons those Terriers got East End place names was because they were running into Liverpool Street. While much of the GER in London was high level, the LB&SCR East London Line was deeply entrenched, as was the GER where they met, so the set up here looks appropriate. 

 

 

 

[Annie]

6 hours ago, Edwardian said:

I feel guilty now!

Please don't james.  While I liked my original 'Minories' layout well enough it's very cramped and was proving difficult to build onto.  All you did was give me a gentle push towards seeing what could be done with this expanded version of C.J.F's design.

 

6 hours ago, Edwardian said:

This sort of layout, and the reason I've always hankered after one, is the ability to combine railway companies. Of course, move it around the capital and those combinations can change.

And it was thought of being able to do that which overwhelmed me more than a little yesterday.  I've pretty much settled on the idea of GER plus friends.  As to the 'friends' I certainly want the MET with the Midland and LB&SCR being possible as well.  Amazingly I do have a LT&SR tank engine in my digital trainset box, but little else unfortunately.

 

7 hours ago, Edwardian said:

For East London, GER, LT&SR and LB&SCR; the reasons those Terriers got East End place names was because they were running into Liverpool Street. While much of the GER in London was high level, the LB&SCR East London Line was deeply entrenched, as was the GER where they met, so the set up here looks appropriate. 

 

 

Deeply entrenched would seem to be what this version of Minories is doing its best to represent and it even has a long buried tunnel section to give me a good excuse to use the condensing version of Ed's lovely GER C32 tank engines.  Thank you for posting the entrenched map as it has helped a lot with giving me a clearer idea of what it is that I'm trying to represent.

[Annie]

A fairly good session down in the trenches with quite a lot getting done.  The trackwork is now all Bullhead rail which went better than I expected.  There's a double slip which I'm still not sure about, but it should work Ok.  The previous track type was a flat bottomed non-procedural type that doesn't automatically generate frogs and check rails and changing to a Bullhead procedural type was fine except for that double slip.  I was able to do proper procedural double slips at Penzance on my Cornish Penzance to Camborne project, but I'm sure I ended up with a lot more grey hair as a result.  The way the votes are falling I think I'm just going to leave in as it is and fake it with faux frog and check rail attachments.

Changing modern BR electric lights for gas lamps was easy.  Shunt signals got changed for something much older.  The signal box was changed.  Dozens of electrical thingummy cabinets were sent off to the scrap merchant.  I though about point rodding and went and did something else instead.  I need to do something about getting rid of the colour light and upper quadrant signals and find proper replacements for them.  I've got some LBSCR signals that are nearly like GER ones only they don't have the long anti-sparrow finial thing on them like GER ones do.

Oh and I found the LT&SR Whitelegg tank engine that I had left lurking about in TS2012.  It will more than likely need a bit fettling if it's going to earn its keep in TANE, but that's not exactly any kind of a problem.

 

 

[Annie]

The latest from Ed Heaps's workbench.

 

[Compound2632]

16 minutes ago, Annie said:

 

I don't think it was Shoreditch they had in mind, there. 

Edited March 22, 2023 by Compound2632

[Annie]

Stanford's Map of Central London 1897  http://www.mapco.net/stanford/stan36.htm

[Compound2632]

39 minutes ago, Annie said:

Stanford's Map of Central London 1897  http://www.mapco.net/stanford/stan36.htm

 

I raise you the Ordnance Survey of the same date, at five feet to the mile:

https://maps.nls.uk/view/101201592.

[Annie]

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

 

I raise you the Ordnance Survey of the same date, at five feet to the mile:

https://maps.nls.uk/view/101201592.

Fascinating.  I can see myself losing hours at a stretch studying maps like these.

[Caley Jim]

7 minutes ago, Annie said:

Fascinating.  I can see myself losing hours at a stretch studying maps like these.

I can (and have) spent many an hour days on the NLS maps website!

 

Jim

[Schooner]

3 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

I raise you the Ordnance Survey of the same date, at five feet to the mile:

Met, and raised with lots of those maps stitched together to cover half of London:

https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#zoom=17.3&lat=51.51920&lon=-0.09664&layers=117746212&b=1

 

Sadly only half as the poor georeferencers are still hard at it, and a fair few PoI aren't yet included...but many are :)

[Annie]

 

The tangled histories of London's railways are certainly fascinating.  As to why the GER never purchased the LT&SR despite it being offered to them several times and then the Midland eventually buying it seems somewhat of a mystery.  I wonder though what would have happened if the NLR as a proxy for the LNWR had won the bid instead.

 

A member of the creator group is building up a representation of the Southern Railway and constituent companies slice of London and the sheer size of his project makes me feel like i need a lie down and a nice hot cup of tea and I'm not even building the huge monster of a thing.

 

This is a snapshot of Fenchurch Street by a layout builder who goes by the name of Mophus.  He's done all of the eastern lines out of London with the ultimate intention of going as far as the Norfolk coast.  With this layout builder it's always difficult to know which time period he's attempting to represent since he seems to mix everything altogether whether it existed at the same time or not, but the thing is absolutely and insanely huge.  It's made to be viewed from footplate level as most of the surrounding buildings are representational at best. It's been made for TRS22, but unfortunately some of the scenic assets he's used don't render properly in TRS22 and he would have been better off doing it in TANE.

I've not tried driving anything on it yet as I'm sure I'd get lost.  Country branchlines or TMR format layouts like Minories are much more like what I'm comfortable with these days.

 

 

12 hours ago, Schooner said:

Met, and raised with lots of those maps stitched together to cover half of London:

https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#zoom=17.3&lat=51.51920&lon=-0.09664&layers=117746212&b=1

Certainly very useful and a great resource so thanks for that. What I particularly like is the amount of historic information on these maps.

 

I'm sure you're familiar with this 1910 Metropolitan Railway video.  I've been doing a lot of staring at the first part out of Baker Street with the tunnels and being down in the trenches.

 

Edited March 23, 2023 by Annie
More words needed.

[Annie]

Unless I've made a real blunder with my research it seems that the LT&SR hired coaches from the Midland which means that I can put a fairly reasonable train together.  Minories's platforms look to be fine for seven Midland suburban coaches and apart from anything else they'll make a nice contrast with GER teak.

 

[Schooner]

Interior view of St Pancras Station, Camden, London, c1895. The station was designed in 1868 by Sir George Gilbert Scott, and the civil engineer was William Henry Barlow. The wrought iron ribs spring from the platforms to cover a span of 240 feet and a length of 690 feet. Steam trains and horse drawn carriages are awaiting passengers. (Photo by English Heritage/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

 

One for the inspiration folder, perhaps. 

[Compound2632]

9 hours ago, Schooner said:

Interior view of St Pancras Station, Camden, London, c1895. The station was designed in 1868 by Sir George Gilbert Scott, and the civil engineer was William Henry Barlow. The wrought iron ribs spring from the platforms to cover a span of 240 feet and a length of 690 feet. Steam trains and horse drawn carriages are awaiting passengers. (Photo by English Heritage/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

 

The Getty captions are frequently very poor. Quite how a photo taken c. 1895 comes to include a pair of 65 ft dining carriages built in 1904 is beyond me, let along so many clerestory carriages in general, such things (apart from a small number dating from the 1870s) not appearing until 1896, and a Belpaire. (See brief discussion on my wagon thread.) But knowing @Annie's interests, I'll repeat here that the arrival at platform 5 is a Great Eastern train.

Edited March 24, 2023 by Compound2632

[Annie]

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

But knowing @Annie's interests, I'll repeat here that the arrival at platform 5 is a Great Eastern train.

Yes the clerestory lav 3rd 6 wheeler at the head of the train is beyond all doubt a GER carriage.

[Compound2632]

17 minutes ago, Annie said:

Yes the clerestory lav 3rd 6 wheeler at the head of the train is beyond all doubt a GER carriage.

 

Thanks for the positive identification. I was alerted to this by the roof, which, though similar in profile, has the clerestory end built up on top of the lower roof profile, unlike a Midland clerestory. Then I looked at the engine's safety valves - un-Midland, distinctively Holden. T19?

Edited March 24, 2023 by Compound2632

[Annie]

2 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Thanks for the positive identification. I was alerted to this by the roof, which, though similar in profile, has the clerestory end built up on top of the lower roof profile, unlike a Midland clerestory. Then I looked at the engine's safety valves - un-Midland, distinctively Holden. T19?

Not so sure on what the engine is, but the vents each side of the clerestory over the two lav compartments at the centre of the coach are a dead giveaway for a GER 6 wheel clerestory coach.

[Annie]

I'm having a rotten job setting up the signalling on Minories as I just plain don't have the right kinds of pre-grouping signals to make a proper job of it.  The two most comprehensive sets are the M&H split post signals set and the N.E.R. set, but while they both are really nice they haven't got what I need.  The N.E.R. set could almost do it, but the signals are too tall and with Minories being down in a trench and crossed by three road bridges it's impossible to sight them properly.

The only set that could work out Ok is the 1930s steel post GWR set which has signals for every occasion you could think of, - including some really unusual ones from Cornwall.  BUT I don't want to use them.

 

Anyway I'm tired now so I'm going to make a cup of tea and read a book for a bit before I go to bed.  I'll have another look at it tomorrow.